The main goal of TOPS has been to keep our best and brightest in the state, or combating “brain drain” since its inception in 1989. TOPS has yet to meet their goal or solve the problem because the implementation of the program ignores the fact that there are varied types of intelligence, and they have equal value.
We live in a society where high value is placed on white collar jobs and professions, but many job fields are becoming saturated.
Instead of pushing high school students to achieve academic success in order to pursue a college degree, the focus should be on preparing them for a position in workforce. This can only be done with the implementation of vocational programs in schools and by offering scholarships similar to TOPS for vocational training schools.
There are far too many people who are intelligent, live great lives and make good money without an inkling of a college education. The worst thing a person could possibly do is spend four years in college developing a drinking problem, debt, and/or an unnatural sleeping schedule when their passion and skills lie not in academia, but in web development, nursing, or computer programming.
The idea a college degree is the new high school diploma is reinforced as money is pulled from different places to ensure TOPS is funded — this mentality could not be more flawed.
TOPS is a burden to the state as it is a huge budgetary and political issue. TOPS, as a concept, is progressive. However, it would be much more progressive if the same value were placed on vocational education as well.
The value of education is not in the pursuit of more education, but in the quality of life achieved as a result of education. The point of a high school education should not be to receive a college education.
After all, only 62.1 percent of college graduates in big cities get a job requiring a degree according to a study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
For example, my friend is a dietetics major but is a fully licensed real estate agent. Sometimes students don’t know they dislike a field or career path until they’ve spent three years studying it. Not wanting to lose TOPS or spend another three years in college, some students stick with a major they know they won’t use.
In America we value craftsmanship and creativity, yet we stifle it with the notion that a college degree is a tangible proof of intelligence. As a society, if we placed value in encouraging students to focus on workforce development and vocational certifications, if they so choose, the student debt crisis would not exist like it does today.
Students could enter the workforce, hone in on their career goals while gaining workforce experience and money, then pursue higher education when they are more secure financially and in themselves.
Breanna Smith is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
